True Life: I Had an Invisible Boyfriend (For Roughly One Hour)

This is Michael - Michael Stark - and he's my Invisible Boyfriend.

Or rather he was my Invisible Boyfriend earlier today for roughly an hour. 

Yesterday, I wrote about this new service, which allows you to basically convincingly pretend that you have a boyfriend - for the low, low price of only $24.99 per month. So today, I thought I'd give it a try.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Wendy, did you really pay $25 to get a fake boyfriend?" And the answer is no. I simply tried out the Beta version this afternoon (for free) and then spent a blissful hour with my new fake boyfriend, Michael Stark.

So, how does this all work? Well, you go to InvisibleBoyfriend.com, and basically make up everything about your boyfriend. You choose his name, his age, his hobbies, where he's from, and even what he looks like.

I honestly didn't realize that there was going to be this much to it. I really thought that I would just go to the site and there would be profiles set up for me to choose from. No such luck. This was turning into a lot of work. But, there was no turning back!

The first step was picking his name. I wracked my brain, trying to think of a good name for my new man-friend. I finally chose Michael (because it didn't sound made up, and I wasn't feeling particularly creative at the time) and went with Stark for the last name because, duh, Game of Thrones and also Iron Man.

Once your new Invisible Boyfriend has a name, you get to choose what he looks like. They didn't have a ton of options to choose from, so I went with a guy who frankly looks like someone that I would date (other than that his hat makes it seem like he might be an L.A. Dodgers fan, and that automatically disqualifies anyone.)

Next up was his age. Everyone knows that I like older men, so I went with 36. Slightly older than me, and still believable (most of the pictures of the guys made them looks WAY too young for me.)

At this point, I started to worry about myself a little bit because I was putting a whole lot of thought into my new fake boyfriend even though I have a real boyfriend at home whom I love very much. Then I remembered that I was doing this for the good of you, lovely reader, and I soldiered on.

Next up, you choose his personality. At first I was going to go with nerdy, because I do dig nerds, but I settled on saucy and sarcastic because I was pretty much building this man into a male version of myself. Then you pick out his hobbies. I went with books, sports, and writing. Mostly because the options were few and far between.

The final step is to make up the story of how you met. They offer a stock one, but I didn't care for it mostly because you will hardly ever find me in a Starbuck's, so I kept the ending, but added my own flair:

We met each other at a charity event and immediately hit if off. We share a ton of interests and have so much fun when we actually get to spend time together. He travels a lot for work so it's difficult to plan dates, but we've been talking and texting constantly. He's so easy to talk to, and I'm excited to see where this is going.

There, done, I had built the perfect Invisible Boyfriend.

Then you just enter your phone number and you wait.

Here's how Michael and I's text conversation went down:

Then I decided to get a little flirty with this fake boyfriend with whom I could only have a conversation that totaled 10 text messages (because after that, you have to pay, and screw that.)

And that's when I learned that dear Michael doesn't know what a damn emoji is. That sealed the deal. I knew that this fake relationship could go no further (which was good, because I couldn't send or receive any more texts without having to pay. And again, screw that.)

So, what's the verdict?

This is pretty fun to play around with for free, but I can't imagine anyone actually paying for the service. I mean, you have to remember that Michael isn't even this guy's real name, and he's probably texting a bunch of other women at the same time. And also, who in the world has pretend relationships, anyway? Other than that weird kid you went to high school with who always said he had a girlfriend, but "you wouldn't know her. She doesn't go to this school."